Spanish-speaking Dispatcher To Start

New Britain News Notes

September 12, 1995

Next month, the city's first Spanish-speaking dispatcher will start work, joining a dozen other public safety dispatchers.

Miriam S. Ithier, a member of the Broad Street community and a volunteer in the police department's Broad Street mobile station, starts her new job Oct. 2. She had worked for the city's water department.

Mayor Linda A. Blogoslawski hired Ithier as part of an initiative to have multilingual dispatchers available to the community.

``We really need to focus on hiring people who can speak Polish and Spanish,'' Blogoslawski said.

James P. Donnelly, the newly hired public safety telecommunications director, said he was surprised to learn that none of the 12 dispatchers spoke a language other than English. The city has a large population of Polish, Spanish and other non-English-speaking residents.

Donnelly, formerly a police captain in the Hartford Police Department, is working with the mayor to hire more multilingual dispatchers. In the past, the dispatchers have asked police officers to help translate.

In the next few months, Blogoslawski said she hopes to hire several part-time multilingual dispatchers who can fill in and eventually take the places of full-time dispatchers.

``Our goal is to have at least one bilingual dispatcher working on every shift,'' Donnelly said. Dispatchers earn between $27,000 and $30,000 a year.